{"id":1201,"date":"2018-01-03T14:30:59","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T14:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/?p=1201"},"modified":"2018-01-03T14:33:05","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T14:33:05","slug":"twelve-killed-in-new-york-apartment-block-blaze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/2018\/01\/03\/twelve-killed-in-new-york-apartment-block-blaze\/","title":{"rendered":"Twelve killed in New York apartment block blaze"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fire tore through a Bronx apartment building on Thursday, killing at least 12 people, including a toddler, and leaving four others fighting for their lives in New York’s deadliest blaze in decades.<\/h2>\n

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The fire broke out around 6:51pm (2351 GMT) in a 25-apartment building near the Bronx Zoo, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the US financial capital.<\/p>\n

A one-year-old child was among those killed as Red Cross volunteers handed out blankets and emergency responders set up a makeshift shelter in a nearby school on a bitterly cold night.<\/p>\n

Tearful residents spoke of hearing shouts of “fire, fire” in the building and a mad rush to exit the property, battling past the smoke, with just the clothes on their backs into the sub-freezing night.<\/p>\n

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Mayor Bill de Blasio<\/a> called it an “unspeakable tragedy,” in the middle of the holiday season when families come together, as the city of 8.5 million straddles Christmas and New Year festivities.<\/p>\n

“Tonight here in the Bronx there are families that have been torn apart. This is the worst fire tragedy we have seen in this city in at least a quarter century,” de Blasio said.<\/p>\n

“I am sorry to report 12 New Yorkers are dead, including one child as young as one year old,” he told reporters after fire fighters extinguished the flames.<\/p>\n

“There are four people critically injured who are fighting for their lives, other serious injuries as well,” he added.<\/p>\n

The blaze began on the first floor and spread rapidly throughout the five-floor walk-up on Prospect Avenue, with fire fighters on the scene within three minutes, department chief Daniel Nigro told reporters.<\/p>\n

‘Died on various floors’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Television footage showed fire fighters plucking panicked residents to safety from a fire escape.<\/p>\n

Two of the dead were discovered in a bath tub full of water, where they had apparently sheltered from the blaze, US media reported.<\/p>\n

Nigro said it was “way too early” to comment on the cause of the inferno.<\/p>\n

At least 12 people were rescued, but the search of the building continues, and the death toll could rise further, the mayor warned.<\/p>\n

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“This tragedy is, without question, historic in its magnitude. Our hearts go out to every family who lost a loved one here and everyone fighting for their lives,” said Nigro.<\/p>\n

“People died on various floors, they range in ages from one to over 50,” he added. “In a department that’s certainly no stranger to tragedy, we’re shocked at this loss.”<\/p>\n

It was the second deadly New York<\/a> residential blaze in less than two weeks. A mother and three children were killed in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn when a fire tore through their home on December 18.<\/p>\n

In March 2007, 10 people were killed in another fire in the Bronx that tore through a home to two immigrant families, itself the worst fire in the city since 1990 apart from the September 11, 2001 attacks.<\/p>\n

The New York Times said Thursday’s blaze was the worst in the city since 87 people were killed in a 1990 inferno at a Bronx social club.<\/p>\n

(AFP)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A fire tore through a Bronx apartment building on Thursday, killing at least 12 people, including a toddler, and leaving four others fighting for their lives in New York’s deadliest blaze in decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1201"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1206,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions\/1206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}